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Michael Yon Reports from Baqubah
Im having comms problems here which is greatly slowing the flow. My Thuraya satellite phone and RBGAN satellite dish are not working for hours each day. The AP reporter is having the same problems. The signal degradation is caused by a special sort of RF interference. Moving our antennas around wont work. We simply get cut off for long periods.Sounds like one of those secret weapons to me. Any mosque basement bomb factories blowing up spontaneously? The combat in Baqubah should soon reach a peak. Al Qaeda seems to have been effectively isolated. The initial attack on 19 June achieved enough surprise that al Qaeda was caught off guard and trapped. They have been beaten back mostly into pockets and are surrounded and will be dealt with. Our commanders have their hands full with the local Iraqi commanders who seem less competent (to be kind) than those I have seen elsewhere, such as in Mosul. Sounds a lot like Fallujah. Our guys are winning. Al Qaeda is about to be strangled and pummeled to death in this town, but the local Iraqi leadership is severely wanting. If you aren't part of the solution, you are part of the problem. This was most obviously noted in one area in particular, where there were some slight indicators of a possible humanitarian need. Crisis certainly is not the correct word, but there are displaced persons numbering at least in the hundreds. After seeing the humanitarian need building with no action to abate it underway, (LTC) Johnson was very unhappy. He immediately started jerking choke chains on the people who are supposed to be handling humanitarian need, trying to avert having it build into a crisis. This is where the inept local Iraqi commanders come in. Ive seen them in meeting after meeting, over the past few days, finding ways to be underachievers. The Iraqi commanders have dozens of large trucks and have only to drive to our base to collect the supplies and distribute those supplies to the people displaced in the battle. Our troops are fully engaged in combat, yet the Iraqi leaders were not able to carry that load without LTC Johnson supplying the initiative. The Kurds would have had this fixed yesterday. The Iraqi commanders in Mosul would have fixed this. The local Iraqi command climate is disappointing by comparison. On information flow, as of noon in Baqubah on 22 June, the press is starting to flood in. The Public Affairs Office and the press climate at this Brigade are A+. Access is actually better than I have ever seen, and that is saying a great deal. A PAO officer told me that about 20 press should be here over the next days, so we should be able to get reports from many independent sources and compare and contrast. The access is unbelievably good. They are not holding back the good, bad or the ugly. Press who arent here in Baqubah with 3-2 Stryker Brigade are missing out. However the press who are here are wasting huge amounts of time on trivial matters that are occurring above the level of 3-2. A big fight seems to be brewing. As of about noon in Baqubah on the 22nd, there seems to be a lull in the fighting. A calm. This is about to get wet. At the going rate, al Qaeda in Baqubah will soon have two choices: Surrender, or die. Posted by: Glenmore 2007-06-22 |
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